Learning From Ye Olde Days

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. Charles Dickens, in spite of his grammatically vexing usage of run-on sentences, knew what he was talking about. Life is good and bad all at the same time.

Yesterday I spent two and a half hours in a dentist’s chair. Every time I have these perfectly nice ladies coming at me with sharp implements and electronic gizmos, I am quite glad to be living in the time that I do. Novocain is my friend and I will take advantage of it. I appreciate chairs that recline. Mostly, I appreciate the fact that “treatment” consists of more than yanking damaged teeth out with pliers.

Then there is the part of me that knows I should have been born in 1920’s. The transitioning of pulps to comic books, a slower pace in life, Vaudeville and The Golden Age of Radio; all are quite intriguing to me. I spend every Monday at work listening to three or four radio broadcasts.

My personal favorite is The Whistler, a suspense-themed drama with an eerie narrator. It started broadcasting while the country was in the midst of World War II. From The Great Depression to a great war, times were hardly the “best”. Still, on their first Christmas broadcast (which can be heard at this site) back in 1944, the announcer had this to say:

“It wasn’t the Christmas we had all hoped and prayed for. There were too many empty places at the table; too many empty places in our heart… As we look back, we may wonder if perhaps we did not give quite enough… Yet even the regrets that may change this season’s gladness can prove its greatest blessing if they fire us to new determination. To new and greater efforts through the coming year until our prayers are finally answered, and peace again returns to heal this confused and torn world.” -“Christmas Bonus”, The Whistler

All that strife and hard events in their lives, and the folks still managed to find some hope. There are millions of people undergoing economic hardship, but there are millions of people helping those folks out. Technology threatens to overwhelm people’s calm and quiet lives, but it also allows the opportunity to stay in touch across the globe like never before. Loved ones can be seen in face-to-face chatting, visited with the help of cross-country plane trips, and remembered in photographs and video recordings.

As any politician or married couple will confirm; there are two sides to every argument. There are good and bad aspects of everything. People with allergies will have less cat hair to clean up and people with three dogs will have jubilant companionship at all times. Single folks do not have to check-in with anyone and couples have someone to take dance with. And of course, unemployed people get to sleep in a little bit later and wear less neckties and heels while overworked folks have a few more dollars in the bank account.

Focus on the bad, or focus on the good. Do you obsess over the fact that one sentence from Dickens can take up an entire paragraph, or marvel at his charming style and wonderful characters?